


"Have you ever eaten an Icelander?”

by AuntyAgonee



Category: Stand Still Stay Silent
Genre: Discussions of Cannibalism, Mikkel is a sasspot for some reason, Sigrun's favouritism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-23
Updated: 2016-01-23
Packaged: 2018-05-15 15:41:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5791189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AuntyAgonee/pseuds/AuntyAgonee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Let’s evaluate our options. We can eat Tuuri, Emil, Lalli or Reynir.”</p>
<p>“Why should we exclude ourselves from this…this thought exercise?”</p>
<p>Sigrun smiles, again, looking slightly demonic “I considered this already. You’re the doctor. If we lose our doctor, then what are we going to do with our boo-boos? Die from them, that’s what.”</p>
<p>“Is that what they call life-threatening wounds in the Norwegian military? Boo-boos?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	"Have you ever eaten an Icelander?”

The day is a pleasant one. Warm enough that several of them have removed their coats to enjoy the sun, filtering through the clouds that constantly hang over the Silent World. Lalli quickly went about collecting these and made a pile for himself, so as to get a good nap in and enjoy the residual body-heat he had stolen.

After exchanging a few pleasantries and affection insults with her team, Sigrun pulled Mikkel away surreptitiously to discuss something. He knew it was going to be secretive and possibly detrimental to the general health of the team, because she insisted on crouching behind a snow-drift rather than sitting a little apart from the others.   
From their new position, they can clearly see the group that Mikkel has come, unconsciously, to think of as ‘the kids’, since not one of them comes within ten years of his age. He can’t help it. Most of his adult life has been spent in the company of adults, so the presence of the younger of his team, no matter how close they may really be to their 20th and 22nd birthdays, make him feel kind of like the father goose in a crèche of gosslings.

Sigrun would be something like the crazy fox that has decided to adopt the family, rather than slaughter and eat them all as she would do naturally in the wild.

“We need to talk about food.” she says with that grimness that looks unnatural on her face “And what we’re going to do when we run out.”

Mikkel tries not to allow himself to become panicked. Why does she think they’re running out of food? The shipment that Trond managed to black-mail out of what Mikkel is sure was an old girlfriend only came in two weeks ago, and since, those two weeks have been some of the best-fed of his life. Not that he really enjoys his own cooking. He imagines that Tuuri, or someone else with some basic idea of how to cook while not poisoning themselves has been tampering with his products.   
He’s fine with that. He’s only passable as a cook, and never really expected to end up feeding more people than himself and maybe some of the sheep and cows back at the farm.

“You're concerned we might run out soon?"

“What? No! No, no, I just want a contingency plan.”

“For an occasion where we might run out?"

“Uh, in case we’re snowed in or something. Or if the cat takes a piss on the supplies. Don't labour the point, Mikkel, just work with me here."

“If the cat relieves itself on the supplies, then we can wash it with melted snow.”

Sigrun wrinkles her nose “Are you kidding me? Once bodily waste touches food, it’s gone. I tell you what- I made the mistake one time of eating my meal after the guy on my right sneezed on it, yeah? And you know what I found?” she holds her thumb and forefinger a little apart to indicate the size of what she found “It was this slimy, yellow thing right on top of my potatoes-”

“Please stop.” Mikkel feels his stomach turning backflips in protest

“Sorry. Just trying to make my point.”

“You have made your point. What do you want to do?”

Sigrun’s expression grows almost diabolical “Keep in mind that this is a purely hypothetical situation.”

He can already tell what she wants to talk about “Sigrun, before you start to suggest that we eat one of the kids, please remember you've hit your head this morning," she did, and it was a fantastic spill she took down the slope. She essentially became a snowball, rolling down the hill and collecting snow as she went. She might have gone on rolling through the Silent World as a screeching snowball had she not been stopped by Reynir, sweeping his legs out from under him, but ultimately losing enough momentum that she was able to stop herself a few feet later.  
"You may not be...thinking as clearly as you think you are." he concludes.

Rubbing the bruise (bandaged, to combat the ever-present threat of face-cancer) on her jawbone absently, Sigrun shakes her head “Listen, we need to have this worked out in our heads. And I don’t think the kids will be lining up to volunteer. Honestly, I’m afraid to even drop the word ‘cannibalism’ in front of Lalli. He might think it’s permission.”

“He wouldn’t even know what you were saying.”

“You know me. I would mime it. One minute I’m being all fun with Emil, pretending to bite his head, and the next Lalli is running off into the snow with blood all over him and Emil’s missing his throat.”

Mikkel gives her a sceptical look, to which Sigrun holds her hands up in a gesture of surrender.

“Alright, alright. I’ll admit that it’s unlikely. But still. I just don’t want to freak them all out by talking about cannibalism.”

“You’re freaking me out.”

“I don’t think you get freaked out, frankly.”

“I do.”

“Yeah, well your freak out face looks what I’m used to seeing every day, so you haven't got me convinced. Let’s just talk about this and get it over with and go on already.” She shifts restlessly “I’m not sure how much longer I want to wait around here.”

Mikkel repeats what he told her this morning, to convince her to let Tuuri to pull what is now fondly referred to as the ‘Cat Tank’ over for a break “If we don’t take a few breaks every now and then, we’re going to get cabin fever. If we get cabin fever, then we probably will kill each other. Besides, if Tuuri sits all day she’s going to get deep vein thrombosis.”

“I know. You told me that this morning.”

But he’s not finished “Which can cause a heart attack, in worst case scenario.”

“Mikkel.” says Sigrun impatiently “You told me this already.

“In best case scenario, I might have to amputate the damaged limb.” he finishes "You could eat that, if you want."

Sigrun scowls lightly “If you’re done?”

“I’m done.”

“Let’s evaluate our options. We can eat Tuuri, Emil, Lalli or Reynir.”

“Why should we exclude ourselves from this…this thought exercise?”

Sigrun smiles, again, looking slightly demonic “I considered this already. You’re the doctor. If we lose our doctor, then what are we going to do with our boo-boos? Die from them, that’s what.”

“Is that what they call life-threatening wounds in the Norwegian military? Boo-boos?"

She continues as if she hasn’t heard him “And if I die, then who’s going to lead the mission and kill things? I mean, I’m not indispensable, but I am important. But the way I figure it, each of the kids’ skills could be learned by someone else if we had to lose them.”

Mikkel cannot help but get into the thought exercise “Well we can’t kill Tuuri unless you’re planning to satay Lalli as well. How will we communicate with him, otherwise?”

They both pause to look at their night-scout, who has burrowed into the pile of coats like a pile of blankets. His arm sticks like a corpse’s, but twitches every now and then, and appears to be groping for Emil’s shoe. As they watch, his fingers find the laces of the boot and start to undo the knot.  
Emil swats his hand away patiently and says something to the pile that neither of them catches.

“I think Emil understands him.”

“Yes, but that’s different to sharing a language,” counters Mikkel “How do you propose to find our way across the Silent World without an experienced scout? He won't want to cooperate if we eat his cousin."

“We could put him on a leash and let him lead the Cat-Tank."

“Or give him orders about what to look out for?”

“We can act it out. We can teach him some Swedish or Norwegian or something.”

Mikkel is, again, sceptical “You want to treat Lalli like a student?”

“Why not?”

"Sigrun, I think you're missing how difficult it is to make Lalli do what he does not want to do. He won't even bathe the Silent World off himself unless Emil drags him outside and does it himself."

Sigrun glances at the coat-pile and sees that Lalli is making another try for the boot “Ok, so he’s out. We can’t eat him either. We need his mage stuff and scouting stuff.”

“With Tuuri and Lalli gone, that only leaves Emil and Reynir.”

Sigrun crosses her arms “We can’t very well eat my right-hand warrior, can we?”

“Well, why not? He’s bigger than Reynir. Not taller, but, you know,” Mikkel gestures to himself by way of example “The same way that I’m meatier than you.”

“How much of that is meat and how much of that is muscle? He’s not even that big! He just looks it because he’s standing next to that Finnish twig all the time.”

They pause again. If Emil senses his curves are being appraised for their worth as a cut of meat from a distance, than he does not turn to investigate.

“Hmm…alright, he’s not that meaty.” admits Mikkel.

Sigrun squints a little harder “Did you know, I never noticed those hips until now? Emil's got some very impressive hips. If he were a woman, suitors would be tripping over themselves to get a crack at them.”

“I hope you know how creepy that comment is.”

She grins “Yeah, I know! Don’t worry about Emil. His chastity will stay intact for the duration of the trip, I’m sure. Probably for the rest of his life, in fact.”

They have to share a chuckle over that.   
Then it’s back to business.

“How are we going to blow stuff up without Emil?” asks Sigrun.

Mikkel shrugs “I was under the impression that all you need to do to blow something up is light the explosive and throw it.”

She shakes her head “But he’s a Cleanser. He knows his stuff. Kind of.”

“You could count his number of kills on your fingers."

Sigrun shrugs "Everyone starts somewhere."

“But who are we comparing him to?” Mikkel jerks his thumb in Reynir’s direction.

Reynir struggles patiently with his braid. Some of his hair has been shaken loose, and he is unravelling half of it to return the stray hair where it belongs. Tuuri, whose hair is short, is transported with delight at the sight of all that auburn hair blowing tantalisingly in the wind. After a cheerful exchange of words, Tuuri ends up sitting behind Reynir and plaiting his hair.

Sigrun observes this with something caught between a frown and a smile “That is adorable, but impractical. That’s just Reynir all over, isn’t it?”

“He’s not even really supposed to be here.”

There is a moment of sinister silence.

Then Sigrun says “Too bad he’s grown on me, otherwise I might not have a problem eating him. I mean, we’d all be coughing up red hair balls for weeks, but it might be worth it. Have you ever eaten an Icelander?”

The kitten crawls from the collar of Reynir’s shirt and jumps into the snow, then immediately decides that it does not like snow and makes a bee-line for the safety of Emil’s lap.  
Lalli must sense a challenger, because he slithers out of his pile of coats and flings himself across Emil’s lap before the kitten can get close. The kitten contemplates this, then climbs up Lalli’s side and settles herself in the small of his back. 

Distantly, they hear Emil say “Lalli, you’re crushing me. Tuuri. Tuuri, tell him his elbow is in my small intestine.”

“Wait a second, something just occurred to me.” Sigrun thrusts her hand into the air, as if to halt a flow of traffic on a busy road “Whoever we kill, we gotta feed either one or two people without immunity. I’ve been bitten. Emil’s been covered in troll goop and the gods only know what Lalli puts in his mouth when he scouts,” she gives Mikkel a searching stare “And I bet one of the reasons that you got fired so many times has to do with trying to eat a troll.”

His lip curls at the thought “I would never put one of those things in my mouth.”

“What about somebody else’s mouth?”

He doesn’t answer this.

Sigrun continues, once she has determined that no amount of wheedling will make Mikkel admit what part of the troll he fed somebody “So that means to keep our immune babies healthy, we can only kill one of them.”

“What about Tuuri? You want to talk about meaty, there you go.”

Sigrun swats him on the arm “She’s sensitive about that, you know!”

“Why? It’s a good thing to have some spare fat in these winters. She'll never have to worry about hypothermia."

She sighs dejectedly. Mikkel has profoundly disappointed her in some way “So it’s agreed? We eat Reynir?”

“I hate to say it, but it seems like we have no other choice if we want to keep our driver healthy.”

“Poor kid.”

“He’d probably volunteer anyway just to make us happy.”

Whatever Sigrun planned to say in response to this chokes off into a forced smile. She waves, and from the corner of the manic smile, mutters “They’re looking. Quick! Act natural!”

 

Tuuri’s face is frozen in a forced grin almost identical to Sigruns “They saw us looking! Uh, everybody act natural.”

The three of them wave and smile mechanically at the other two members of their team, hunched behind the snow drift, presumably discussing profit margins or something. Lalli notices that his living cushion is waving and copies Emil’s motion, if only to feel included. 

“Do you think they know what we were talking about?” mutters Emil.

“No way. No way could they guess.” says Tuuri “I mean…how could they?”

“I’d never guess that we were talking about cannibalism if I were watching us,” adds Reynir “It’s not like they’re sitting over there talking about the same stuff.”

“So…so it’s agreed then?” says Emil hesitantly “If we get snowed in, we cut off one of Mikkel’s legs and hope that Sigrun can dig us out with her Norwegian might before we have to cut off another leg?”

“Yes. And I used the term ‘Norwegian might’ sarcastically.” confirms Tuuri.

Emil his flustered “Uh, so did I! So did I.”

“Wait a second…uh…we have a problem. So, Mikkel’s the cook, right?” Reynir tugs nervously at one of the curls that Tuuri has not yet swept into his braid “Then who the hell will cook the leg? I don’t think I can make Mikkel cook his own leg. I mean, unless he volunteers.”

“He probably would, just to make us happy.” says Emil.

“We’ll think of something.” Tuuri assures them “Remember, guys, this is just a thought exercise. We’re not really gonna have to eat each other.”

They all laugh nervously. This, Lalli does not join in, but rather he decides to punish Emil for participating by shifting more of his weight onto him, and then knocking over his Swedish cushion entirely.

Sigrun and Mikkel join them after a few moments. They talk and laugh and scold Lalli for his Emil-abuse as usual, but for some reason, those who were behind the snow drift cannot quite look the others in the eye, and vice versa.

**Author's Note:**

> It would never occur to them to eat the cat, would it? Of course not! The Purrito is indispensable to the mission. 
> 
> So this was my first real contribution to the fandom. I'm hoping I didn't gross anyone out too much, and please, do not think that the 'adults' ultimate desicion to eat Reynir in anyway denotes a dislike for the kid. Hell no. I would marry his braid, and to a lesser extent the cinnamon bun attached to it, if I could.
> 
> I hope to be a little more active here in the future.


End file.
